In the area where George Floyd died while in police custody, a makeshift memorial has been set up. It’s at the intersection of E 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and it’s been dubbed George Floyd Square. A sign posted at the site alerts people that it is a “sacred space for community, public grief, and protest,” but it also includes a list of specific guidelines “for white people in particular.”

The sign then gives a bulleted list of instructions for white people that are as follows:

• Decenter yourself and come to listen, learn, mourn, and witness. Remember you are here to support, not to be supported.

• Be mindful of whether your volume, pace, and movements are supporting or undermining your efforts to decenter yourself.

• Seek to contribute to the energy of the space, rather than drain it. Bring your own processing to other white folks so that you will not harm BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color).

• Consider if you want or need to take photos and post them. Do not take photos of other people without their consent.

• If you witness white folks doing problematic things, speak up with compassion to take the burden of off [sic] Black folks and our siblings of color whenever appropriate. Seek to engage rather than escalate, so that it can be a learning moment rather than a disruption.

The Washington Examiner reports, “Minneapolis put up barricades at the intersection on May 25, 2020, the day Floyd was killed. The square now hosts numerous gatherings and is filled with artwork and memorials to Floyd. Activists also declared the square an ‘autonomous zone' from which white people were barred, according to one person involved.”

How is this all not blatantly racist? The short answer is, “Of course it is.” But in the Left’s upside-down world of “woke,” prejudice and stereotyping of race is “anti-racism,” whereas objecting to such racial stereotyping is deemed “racist” and harmful to BIPOC.

Yet another factor in this topsy-turvy reality is the fact that prior to Floyd’s death and the subsequent riots that followed, the area around the intersection of 38th and Chicago was becoming a thriving area for black-owned business. That has since changed after businesses were looted and burned in all those “peaceful protests.” A growing anti-police movement fomented by groups like Black Lives Matter also has caused a dramatic drop in the presence of law enforcement in the area.

The New York Post reports, “At least five stores along one block are shuttered. Owners and workers at most of the stores that do remain open were too afraid to comment to The Post. 'Look around, things are empty,’ said Richard Roberts, who works at the nearby Worldwide Outreach for Christ church. ‘What can we do about it? Sometimes it’s good and sometimes bad,’ Roberts said. ‘It’s not stopping violence.’”

One thing’s for sure: Preaching racism as a “solution” will only bring greater division and resentment among the vast majority of Americans who are innocent and rightly offended by the Left’s spurious charge of “systemic racism.” Segregation and racial identitarianism certainly weren’t the “solutions” envisioned by Martin Luther King Jr.